Improvement in lifting-bars



diluted gister y @met @Mira Letters Patent No. 92,792, dated July 20, 1869.

IMPRofvEMENT m merma-BARS.

' The Schedule referred to in these Letters Patent ,and making p'art of the same.

To all 'whom it may concern Be it known that I, D. P. BUTLER, of' Boston, in the county of Su'olk, and State of Massachusetts, have invented an Improved Handle for Lifting-Apparatus, 85e. and I do hereby declare that the following, taken in connection with the drawings which accompany and form part of this specification, is a description of my invention, suicient to enable those skilled in the art to practise it.

Y In the use of hygienic lifting-apparatus, it is very diiiioult to obtain handles having surfaces, not only properly shaped for the grasp of the hands, but upon which the hands will not slide; the nearest approach to a perfect handle for this purpose` havug'been a handle surfaced with buckskin, and this soon wears smooth and becomes slippery, is not enduring, cannot be. readily brought to 'the irregular form which it is lequisite for such a handle to have, to enable a firm and: tenacious grasp to be maintained, and the seam made by the lapping edges of the buckskin is always liable to open, and generally presents an objectionable ridge or protrusion.

After much thought and many experiments, extending over a series of years, I have at ,last 'produced a handle which is ti'ce from all of these defects, and which embraces everything that is needed in thel handholding ends of a lifting-bar, so far as relates to grasping-surfaces. y

l My invent-ion consists in a handle, which, being first brought to the desired form, is covered by a thin -skin or coating of rubber, or rubber compound, vulcanized directlyupon the woodenbody or other material of I `which the handle is made. l

The drawing represents a lifting-bar having handles thus made.

A shows a longitudinal central section of the bar.

B, a cross-section of one of the handles.

a denotes the bar, which, if to be used in connection with my lifting apparatusfis formed not unlike the bar shown .in my United States patent, No. 55,618, granted June 19, 1866.

b b denote the two handles or hand-grasping ends of the bar.

Around each of these ends, I wind, or otherwise apply a soft rubber coating, c, and having enveloped the whole end with the rubber, I vulcanize the rubber by heat and pressure, such vulcanization bringing the rubber into one homogeneous piece, without seam or division ofany-kind, and pressure upon it causing thev rubber to adhere throughout, so thatl when iinished, the rubber has permanently imparted to it the contour of the wood beneath, forming a hand-grasp towhich the palm of the hand, and the inner surfaces of the fingers will cling without slipping, and which has a. very Slight degree of elasticity,so that iti-is soit or yielding to the hand. The surface thus formed is also very enduring, andl'uever becomes displaced by grasp.- y

th'er handles may belthus covered with' rubber. vulcanized directly upon them, though theginyentiopf is more particularly designedfor the handles'cf lifting and other hygienic apparatus.

I claim theimprovement in surfacing handles, substantially as and for the purpose specified;

y f D. P. BUTLER,A

Witnesses:

J. B. CROSBY, FRANCIS Gouw. 

